Committee discusses Kellogg Lake fountain

Tuesday

Apr 9, 2013 at 8:56 AMApr 9, 2013 at 8:57 AM

With about $12,500 to spend and costs coming in above that number, the Carthage City Council's Public Services Committee and Parks Director Alan Bull discussed several options to replace the disabled fountain in Kellogg Lake.

John Hacker

With about $12,500 to spend and costs coming in above that number, the Carthage City Council's Public Services Committee and Parks Director Alan Bull discussed several options to replace the disabled fountain in Kellogg Lake.

Bull said he hopes to have bid specifications out to vendors early next week in order to have the bids back in time for the committee to consider them before its May meeting.

Bull said the city has budgeted $9,500 for replacing the fountain and the Kellogg Lake Board has pledged $3,000, as long as they like what the city plans to purchase.

Jim Crocker, chairman of the Kellogg Lake Board, said the city came to the board and asked if they could contribute to the new fountain.

“It would be attractive for the lake and for the surrounding park,” Crocker said. “People coming into town would see it and it would be impressive. We don't want something that shoots a few feet in the air like that fountain at the golf course. We said 30 feet in the air, 20 feet to the side and it has to be lit. Then we'll give the money.”

One of the small lakes, located just off Morgan Heights Road at the south end of Municipal Park, has a small fountain with a three-horsepower motor that shoots water about 12-15 feet in the air, according to Carthage Golf Course Professional Mark Peterson.

Bull said he was preparing specifications based on a fountain that, in catalogs, would cost about $14,000 to $14,500.

“Of course this would have to be bid, so this price may actually get a little bit cheaper,” Bull said. “We don't have the money to do all of this. We're close, but we don't have the money.”

He told the committee that a fountain with a seven and a half or eight horsepower motor would shoot water almost 30 feet into the air and about 20 feet out to all sides.

Bull said lighting the fountain an expensive part of the bid, with halogen lights running about $2,200 to $2,300 and longer-lasting, more-efficient LED lights running more than $4,000.

Bull said the LEDs would use much less electricity and could last over 40,000 hours.

“They use a 150-watt halogen bulb as 100 percent of power usage,” Bull told the committee. “The LEDs would only be 16 percent of that.”Bull told the committee he will have vendors bid different sized pump motors, halogen and LED bulbs, and include the lifetime running costs of each option in the bids.

The previous fountain had run for more than two decades and had been rebuilt at least three times before it failed last summer. Bull told the committee earlier this year that the fountain was beyond repair or rebuilding this time.